


All Her Stars

by Bottom_PeteParker



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Andrew Garfield - Freeform, Aunt May appreciation, Aunt May is a blessing, Childhood Memories, Deadpool - Freeform, Mentioned Gwen Stacy, Mentioned Mary Jane Watson, Peter Parker growing up, Random fic, Spider-Man - Freeform, Stargazing, Stars, idk this was cute to me, mentioned avengers - Freeform, solar eclipse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 10:29:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11872455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bottom_PeteParker/pseuds/Bottom_PeteParker
Summary: Flashes of Peter Parker's relationship with his Aunt and Uncle over the years and star related memories.-aka Aunt May appreciation fic no one asked for-aka 2017 solar eclipse viewing but also Aunt May being cherished.***unedited***





	All Her Stars

When Peter was little Uncle Ben would put his hand on his back as he climbed up their rusty ladder to the roof. He made sure Peter wasn't scared, he promised he would catch him if he fell. Aunt May would be there to hold his hand as he stepped up. They'd sit on a blanket and look at the stars, they'd color alien coloring pages and eat peanut butter sandwiches until Peter fell asleep with his glasses still on. Every Saturday they sat on the roof and every Sunday his uncle would tell him a new fun fact about the stars or the planets or the sky.

  
In those days Aunt May had flowing brown hair that always smelled like roses and she could bend down to pick him up without whimpering. She could drape him over her shoulders like a scarf and spin around to whatever song played over the static of the radio. 

  
In those days Uncle Ben didn't have a terrible cough that sounded like thunder trapped in his chest. He'd hold hands with May and they'd dance together while Peter gnawed at his snacks, wondering if that's what love was. Ben would sit down next to him and tell Peter how he used to show his father the stars when they were young.

  
Whenever he had time off from work Ben would take him to the library to check out books. They had a rule, he could check out as many books as he could carry. Peter always picked out the same book along with all the new ones his weak arms could hold. The Sky Is Full of Stars by Franklyn M. Branley was an old book but every week he'd pick it up again and again, treating its bent pages like they would fall apart between his thumb and index finger.   
One time they were sitting on the roof and Peter noticed that Aunt May had a hint of grey in her hair and another time Ben stuttered through the same fact that he had said for the past three Saturdays. He also said it wrong. Instead of being carried inside because he fell asleep he helped Aunt May climb down the ladder and then he went inside to do this weekend homework. The next day when he walked with Ben to the library they had to sit down on the bench outside so he could catch his breath. Even with his asthma, that walk had never shaken his lungs the way it had for Ben. When Peter checked out his books, he blushed when he asked the librarian where his special book was. She made a little joke about him being too old, a sweet little comment from a sweet old lady, but he forced out a nervous laugh and left without any books.

  
They did not dance anymore, they held hands over the kitchen table and rested their heads together on the couch. They didn't go on the roof anymore, they sat on the porch until eleven p.m. That's when Ben went inside to get Mays medicine, the one they couldn't afford but insisted she take. Peter would kiss both of their foreheads before he went inside to work on whatever page Flash and his crew made him do, the ticket out of a beating. Ben's hips hurt too much to make the walk to the library and the pages of The Sky Is Full of Stars was left to the mercy of the children who would read it.

  
When the spider bit him he felt so strong, so free. 

  
When he watched his uncle died he felt so weak, so trapped in his own mind. He sat on the porch alone looking up at the stars, wondering how they could still shine without the man who raised him mumbling their secrets. Aunt May stayed in bed for a few months, Peter stayed home from school to feed her. He worked odd jobs so he could force her to take each of the pills that they couldn't afford.

  
Eventually, she pulled through, even with her weak bones and silver hair. She was the strongest woman he knew.   
He forgot about the stars for some time, he forgot about the ghost of a hand pressed against his back as he scaled buildings without fear. Red and blue spandex was Saturday. 

  
They made a habit out of having dinner with Gwen on Friday nights, the table set for one guest who always missed the meal. One day Mag brought up the stars with glassy eyes, asking if Gwen would come over the next night to sit on the porch with her. Peter had ‘work’ to do, work that Gwen whispered about when she saw a bruise or a scrape or a shallow stab wound. May lived on the edge of the city so he couldn't make it if he tried, but after a long night of flying through the air he laid down to think. He could imagine May in her chair, Gwen in his. Ben's chair would be empty just like his place at the table, or his side of the bed, like the little hole in Peter's heart. He felt trapped again so instead of sleeping he pulled on the mask again and swung through the air, close to the stars.

  
Gwen told him all about Mays stories and all her scattered facts. She brought them closer to the stars and for the first time in a long time, he sat on the roof. He sat on top of many buildings, be brought Gwen on top of a lot of them. But she pulled up the blanket and they held each other while May slept in the house. 

  
When Gwen fell he couldn't breathe, like he was having a panic attack and then having an asthma attack and then having everything he loved ripped away by his own webs. May was there for him like she always was but he couldn't go out. He couldn't put on the mask without hearing that snap. He couldn't spin a web to swing with the stars without seeing her drop. He stayed with May inside, bills piling and stars were hidden.

  
Mary Jane had always been a friend. A beautiful friend who twirled red hair around manicured fingers when she needed help with her homework. Now she didn't need help anymore. Peter was in college and she was an actress. She complained when he wasn't at her plays and she never questioned the bruises or the cuts because she was mad about this or that. May liked her well enough, she really was a nice girl. Peter loved her but she couldn't understand why they lived such plain lives. Peter loved the stars, he loved an old man who spoke to them, he loved a falling star that burned up in a toxic atmosphere, and he loved a starlet.  

  
Eventually, she had better things to do with more exciting people and Peter was heartbroken. It didn't hurt how he thought it would but it still hurt. For some time he studied, he fought along amazing people like his idol or a character from the comics he read as a child or some guy with stubby red horns on his forehead. He ate dinners with Aunt May and he paid her rent while he struggled to pay his own. 

  
Some strange man started following him around, calling out jokes and killing people without a second thought. Sometimes Peter doubted that there was even a first thought. Lonely nights brought hungry men together over bad jokes and greasy food. Peter made a friend in Wade. He was a good guy with scrambled brains and scarred flesh. He tried really hard to impress Peter. He followed him around like he was a star. Beautiful, blinding, out of reach.

  
Now, Peter had climbed up some building in Kentucky. There's no hand on his back but there's a red arm around his shoulder. He isn't scared to be on the roof of a Stark Astrology Tower. He looks down at Aunt May as her silver hair floats around her thin face in the light breeze as he lifts her up on the strands of several webs. A red glove reaches out for her but black leather intercepts. She smiles and steps onto the roof. An ancient blanket is spread out and there are at least four dozen sandwiches in the giant basket next to him. Aunt May is greeted lovingly by everyone else on the roof before she takes her seat and puts on her sunglasses.

  
In the spirit of them being together, they all wear their uniforms. The scene behind him is a rainbow, not in the sense of two war veterans sharing soft kisses or the things he's done in the arms of the man next to him. Yellow, blue, white, black, purple, and green. And lots of red. Peter sees the sky begin to go dark and he sees Wade hand him his glasses. The Avengers put on their respective glasses as they all wait.

  
The moon floats in front of the sun and a golden ring shines around it. There are gasps around them and May covers her mouth with a wrinkled hand and simple ring. Wade squeezes his hand and Tony Stark requests that they all lift their glasses. When they do they toast to all the things that they're thankful for silently. The two minutes feel like magic, they feel like all the best years Peters lived all together in a blinding halo. When the moon slips away and the sky returns to blue they chatter about how amazing it was. Even Thor admits that it was beautiful. Wade eats almost all of the sandwiches and May whispers about how much Ben would have loved the eclipse. Bruce Banner gave him a gift that he saved until now, a book that is a new copy of a memory, one that's not so damaged from suffering years and years of abuse from small hands. He flips through it with May and they smile at Wade when he picks at the frayed edges of the blanket.

  
They stay up on the roof after the eclipse is over and they stay up on the roof when the sky is full of stars. The party ended and the sandwiches ran out but everything is peaceful. Aunt May fell asleep on his shoulder, her reading glasses crooked on the end of her nose. Peter brushes the hair out of her face and smiles to himself. 

  
Ben gave his father the stars, Ben gave Peter the stars. Ben gave him morals and cheap humor and trips to the library. Ben gave him May. He gave him the woman who raised him and loved him and always burnt the bottom of her cookies just a little bit. Peter remembers a voice from a night in New York before the city begged for his name. Before the city was even his. A night on a roof in the suburbs. It tells him about Venus, named after the goddess of love. The voice tells him about love and his mind shifts to the present and the peanut butter breath that's saying something about something. Crawling back into his own mind he thinks about his uncle. Whispering about Venus and all the planets and all the stars but one thing blocked it all out with the power of Venus. Aunt May eclipsed it all, the love Ben felt for her could outshine the Sun.  

  
Peter felt it too. The love for a woman who stood over it all but still bent down with her bad back to talk to little kids who tried to sell her cookies on the porch. All of Ben's stars belonged to her. All of Peter's stars belonged to her. Uncle Ben gave him the sky. He laid it out to hold all of his love. Gwen and Mary Jane and Wade Wilson gave him some stars. Some of them fell with haunting sounds, some of them left for Hollywood, some of them tried hard to be better for him. But Aunt May taught him how to love those stars, how to pull yourself up when you were too scared to look for them. All of Ben's stars, all of his own stars belong to her. Shes an old woman and she's weak. Hes felt it before and he doesn't want to feel it again. But he will. When she dies she'll leave all the stars and she'll expect Spider-Man to swing through them like she wasn't gone.

  
Wade wipes a tear off his face and smiles at him. He feels her breath on his shoulder and he hears the soft wheezing in her chest. Aunt May is with him and they're on their blanket under the stars. And for now it's all okay.


End file.
